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kovidgoyal said:
> Since I have a little experience writing converters, I'd just like to say that
> if somebody does write a new improved gutenberg to html converter
> to use a well defined semantic scheme by CSS classes.
um, to repeat, there's a good reason why no one will write an "improved"
gutenberg-to-html converter. it's the same reason that made ron burkey
give up on gutenmark, namely, the inconsistencies riddling p.g. e-texts.
until those inconsistencies are cleaned up, a converter is a pipe-dream...
however, once those inconsistencies _are_ cleaned up, we no longer need
to _convert_ the e-texts to _any_ other format, because their consistency
will mean that viewer-programs can be made to handle their native format.
this presents the existential conundrum of heavy-markup.
until it can be applied _automatically_, its cost is too high.
but once it _can_ be applied automatically, it's unnecessary,
because the very same routines that convert text to xhtml so
that xhtml can be rendered by a display-program can instead
be put into a viewer-app that eliminates the xhtml middleman,
by working directly with the text as its input to create its output.
once you understand this, deeply, markup becomes a bad joke.
we take simple text and turn it into complicated markup, and then
we need a complicated program to handle the complicated markup
and turn it back into simple text that can be displayed. it's just silly.
once i show people markup is unnecessary, they'll laugh at you for doing it.
and i don't say that to _mock_ you; i say it so you can avoid looking stupid...
-bowerbird
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